Izzi B's serving up allergen-free desserts

Published 8:00 pm, Saturday, June 12, 2010

Leah Lagrua and Jaimee Bryson work for Pam Nicholas who started Izzy B

Leah Lagrua and Jaimee Bryson work for Pam Nicholas who started Izzy B

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Izzi B's serving up allergen-free desserts

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NORWALK

By A.J. O'CONNELL

Hour Staff Writer

This spring, Misty Dennis of Missisippi had a problem. Her daughter, Haley, was having her fourth birthday and Dennis needed cupcakes. This would send any almost other mom to the grocery store for ingredients, but not Dennis: Haley is allergic to peanuts, eggs, soy, wheat, oats, milk and any type of seeds.

"I did a Google search," said Dennis. "I searched for days and days for an allergen-free bakery, a completely allergen-free bakery."

She came up with Izzi B's, of Norwalk. The only problem? Pam Nicholas, the owner, wasn't ready to ship cupcakes yet.

"I begged, because I was desperate," laughed Dennis. "We've never had a birthday party with a cake."

Nicholas, 40, of Wilton has been in business for less than a year, but she hears stories like that all the time. In fact, Nicholas never would have started making allergen-free cupcakes if it weren't for her own daughter's food allergy. Just before Isabella (Izzi) had her first birthday, she was diagnosed with an egg allergy.

Nicholas, a professional chef, was determined to make her daughter cupcakes for her birthday. Although she didn't quite nail the recipe that first year, she soon started hearing about other children with allergies. She heard about children with apple allergies, and kids with gluten-intolerance, and small children who were already living vegan lifestyles. And that's when she decided to try to make cupcakes with no allergens at all. Inspired by Jewish Apple Cake, which uses potato starch, she started building her recipe, which has expanded to include agave, rice milk, sorghum, tapioca starch and other ingredients.

Here is a list of what you won't find in an Izzi B's cupcake: wheat, soy, egg, gluten, dairy, nuts, casein, refined sugar, honey, seeds, apples, trans-fats, preservatives and animal products. Vegans can eat them, celiacs can eat them and Nicholas is happy to provide her nutritional information to doctors' offices if a customer doesn't know if he or she can eat her cupcakes.

You might think that would leave you with a handful of air, but the cupcakes are very real, and people like them.

"The general consensus of people, when they hear 'gluten-free' is 'ew,'" she said.

Nicholas offers free samples to the doubters when they drop by her booth at the Sunday Farmers Market in Westport and the Wilton Farmers Market.

"I love that surprise they have," she said.

Nicholas has been working in the food industry for years; she discovered cooking when she was in college, studying to be a graphic designer. After graduation, she waited tables to put herself through the French Culinary Institute, and then worked in a variety of restaurants, ending up with food service group Restaurant Associates.

"I was the chef for the U.N.'s delegates dining room," said Nicholas. "I made a chicken salad sandwich for Bill Clinton while someone followed me around the kitchen."

The last thing Nicholas wanted to do, ironically, was bake.

"Being a woman chef, you don't want to be a baker or a salad chef," she said.

She began experimenting with cupcakes when her family lived in New Jersey. It took a divorce and a move to Connecticut for Nicholas to turn her allergen-free cupcakes into Izzi B's, which opened its commercial kitchen in Norwalk at the end of last summer.

The one drawback, Nicholas says, is that her products are pricey; large cupcakes cost $3.95 and small ones cost $1.50.

"My cupcakes are expensive. The ingredients are expensive," she said. I'd love to bring the cost down."

Nicholas also doesn't have a storefront; her cupcakes can be found at farmers markets and at stores and cafes in the area, including Ridgefield Organic & Specialty Market and Stepping Stones Museum. She will be in Whole Foods and Palmer's Baker in Darien soon, she says, and she bakes for events and people who contact her via her website, ibcakes.com.

Nicholas says she's happy to be bringing cupcakes to people who would not ordinarily be able to have one.

"Everybody deserves a cupcake," she said.

As for Haley Dennis in Missisippi? She got her cupcakes after all. Nicholas finally yielded to her mother's pleas and agreed to ship cupcakes to Missisippi, and Haley had her very first birthday party with cupcakes.

"She was superduper excited," said her mother, who ordered more cupcakes than she needed so that Haley could have one every now and then.